Worker Safety and Health Programs

Overview
President Bush's FY 2006 budget reduces the federal government's commitment to protecting worker safety and health. The funding levels proposed for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) are insufficient to maintain current program activities of these agencies.

For FY 2006, the Bush administration has proposed these funding levels:

With this combined budget request of $1.03 billion for the federal job safety agencies, the Bush administration proposes to spend less than $8 per worker to protect American workers from job injuries, illnesses and death.(According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2004 there were an average of 129,695,000 workers employed in the United States (not including self-employed workers and unpaid family members). http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat15.pdf)

The FY 2006 budget reflects the Bush administration's priorities and policies that favor employers over workers and voluntary compliance over enforcement. At OSHA, the president proposes to eliminate all funding for worker safety training programs ($10 million appropriated by Congress in FY 2005); at the same time, he seeks increases for employer assistance programs. A total of $127 million is proposed for programs to provide compliance assistance to employers, compared with zero funding for programs to provide outreach to workers. Taking into account inflation, this year's proposed budget freezes OSHA's and MSHA's enforcement programs.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) ($ in millions)

• The FY 2006 budget proposes $467 million in funding for OSHA, compared with $464.2 million appropriated in FY 2005.
  
  
• Adjusting for inflation, the FY 2006 proposed OSHA budget represents a $6.7 million cut in real-dollar terms from FY 2005 appropriations.
  
  
• In FY 2006, the Bush administration proposes to eliminate funding for worker safety and health training and education programs. In previous years, the administration proposed to reduce funding for these programs from $11 million to $4 million. In each of those years, Congress rejected these proposed cuts and maintained funding for worker safety training programs. The administration would shift this money to compliance assistance programs for employers, bringing the total funding for these employer programs to $127 million, up from $124.1 million in FY 2005.

Funding for OSHA Worker Safety Training Programs Vs. Employer Compliance Assistance Programs
($ in millions)

• The proposed budget requests $17 million in funding for safety and health standards, compared with $16.1 million appropriated in FY 2005. Instead of developing new protections, the Bush administration has set as its priority the review of existing rules. According to the administration's latest Regulatory Agenda issued in December 2004, no new significant final standards are planned, making this the first administration in OSHA's history to issue no major safety and health standards during its tenure. Instead, the administration overturned OSHA's ergonomics standard, killed pending final rules on indoor air quality and tuberculosis and withdrew or delayed dozens of other important safety and health rules.
  
  
• Since taking office in 2001, the Bush administration has reduced OSHA staff by 162 positions, from 2,370 Full Time Equivalents (FTEs) in FY 2001 to 2,208 FTEs proposed for FY 2006. The majority of these staff cuts have been in the standards and federal enforcement programs.
  
  
• No specific funds or initiatives are proposed to address the serious safety and health problems faced by immigrant and Hispanic workers, who have much higher rates of workplace injuries and fatalities than other workers.
  
  
• No specific funds or activities are proposed to address ergonomic hazards or to implement the administration's comprehensive approach to ergonomics that was announced in April 2002. Since that time, the federal OSHA has issued only three voluntary guidelines—for nursing homes, retail groceries and poultry and issued 15 general duty citations for ergonomic hazards.